Country Living at its Best
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Chicken Broilers
Hello Welcome to my Broiler Page. On the left hand side of here you will see other different areas of interest on our homestead.
After two years of living on our new farm we finally got our processing center going for our birds. We were able to do one batch before the draught started but now we wait for more rain or save up enough to buy pipes so we can irragate our fields with the canal water to get our grass going again.
As you can see above we also grass feed our broilers. Their coop is moved daily sometimes even three times a day to new grass. It is easy to pull with just one person, my husband put handlers made out of rope and hose up front. Everything is made out of wood, don't use metal or it weighs it down. They are also on skits to help it slide across easily. I usually move it just before I have to put water in their hanging containers. The feed and water containers help keep the coop down especially in high winds which we have here a lot. The feed we give them is mostly a vitamin feed sometimes some alfafa and local corn.
You can see the right coop above picture where they have been at eating, its all bare. Some let them free range outside the coop, but this has never worked for us perhaps in a mild climate this would work. We had 4 of them die on us once cause they were not smart enough to go 5 feet away into the shade.
They are pretty dumb I hate to admit that, (many call them the frankenstein chickens) they dont do much but eat and sit cause of their size the breast is huge. The meat from a pastured chicken is wonderful we have always gotten good reviews from our neighbors and family about it.
The processing center comes with adjustable killing cones (turkey size/chicken size/quail size) Near it is our own made scalder that works wonderful! then we have the plucker we bought ours but there is online on how to make your own. This is a must to have cause you can spend 30min just plucking one chicken but with the plucker you can do one/two/three of them within 5 secs.
Then we have the tables where we pluck more if we have too and gut out the birds then wash them out. If you notice the icechest we will put them in their to keep them cold till we get to them.We have a water system to the whole place to keep everything clean and keep the flys away. We are going to put in a screen around the whole place soon that is our next thing on our list enventually hot water too and a septic.
Procedures: Warning: Please always contact your local Health Agency, things are constantly changing. This is what I heard I am not responsible for any changing or mis information.
Each state is different on doing poultry and things change. As for Texas you need to get a hold of your Texas Health Department as of April/2006 you can obtain a APPLICATION FOR GRANT OF POULTRY/RABBIT EXEMPTION http://www.tdh.state.tx.us/bfds/msa/licmsa.html if you want to sale from from home under 10,000 a year. If you are just doing it for yourself and family members and you are not selling it, then you do NOT need this grant.
Anyways this grant will include, ducks, pigeons, quail, rabbits, any poultry but emu I think please recheck on that. This requires you to be able to sale poultry/rabbit from your property to people or restaurants (not outside state). If you sale outside your home you must also label it that should be on the page too its pretty simple.
I was told you can also do custom butchering of these animals with a similar grant "Custom exception" I think its called, but it would only be for those people bringing in the poultry/rabbit they could not resell it, it would be for their use only. So yes you could rent it out you have to apply for a custom exception. This does NOT include other animals like cattle pigs etc...those go under different laws.
You must have a "Standard Operation Procedures" hanging or in folder near your process center so an inspector can look at it and have access too. This has been a big talk issue on the chicken forums online about this, some say its really complicated saying their local inspectors have said this, or someone they talked to on the phone said that the SOPS is more complicated then they let on. As of today talking to a Mr Lord from the Texas Health Department it didnt sound complicated to me. Once you get it up a standard one which he directed me to the USDA Site and I typed in "Standard Operating procedures" I saw a few examples. This is sort of what they go on, he had told me. They just want to make sure you have a clean processing center and your following your cleaning procedures.
There are no rules on how big or what you need in your facility, if you plan someday to do a dairy farm with cheese or milking room this will have to be separate for sure.
Once you turn in your application they will come to your facility and look it over and let you know what you need to improve or not. Then after that they will come in unannounced visit to make sure you are keeping it up and have the SOP near there and every few months after that.
Below is a picture of our process center. Its just the right size for four people. Hubby does the killing cones and scalder and final inspection. Daughter does the plucker and plucking stray feathers. I do the gutting and cleaning and help with packaging. We all help clean up.
We are planning to do this the same day that our customers will be coming in to pick up. We will start really early in the morning. I will make us a premade lunch to have with lots of water and drinks when we need it.
Clip Art by Lisa Photos done by moi!
